BATTLE IN THE CAPITAL
Fei flies above the royal capital, carrying us on her back.
Her flight is surprisingly stable for someone who only just evolved and gained the skill.
Even with three people riding her, it feels safe.
Still, at this speed, you’d definitely get shaken off if you weren’t holding on tight.
Considering she doesn’t even have the High-Speed Flight skill yet, I’m pretty terrified for the future.
I might not be able to ride her at all once she gets that skill.
“There it is.”
Squinting into the powerful wind, I look ahead.
There, I can see the castle emerging from the darkness of the night.
Leston and the others are most likely being held captive in there.
Get close to the castle in the air on Fei, then break in.
Rescue our allies and escape.
Our strategy is so plain and simple that it can’t really be called a plan, but the fact is, we have no other choice.
If we’re going to succeed, we’ll need the speed and power to break through.
We should be fine in terms of combat power.
There’s me, the hero; Hyrince, who fought constant battles alongside Julius; and Katia, who isn’t known as a prodigy for nothing.
Frankly, there probably aren’t many humans who could stop us three.
According to our information, Hugo and Sue have already left the castle via Teleport.
If Hugo is back in the Renxandt Empire by now, there shouldn’t be anyone left who’s strong enough to stand in our way.
The only people I’m worried about are Sophia and those two black-clad fighters.
If that mysterious girl is there, we might be in trouble.
I definitely got a very bad feeling from that girl.
It wasn’t just that magic didn’t work on her. There was something disturbingly eerie about her.
To the point where she might even be more dangerous than Hugo.
If she’s still here, then there might be a difficult battle ahead of us.
But that’s a big “if.”
I don’t know why I can’t shake off this feeling of anxiety, despite the impressive force of our team.
“Ah! Fei! Watch out!”
As if to confirm my fears, something comes flying toward us at high speed.
Fei hurriedly avoids it, her abrupt movements shaking us around.
“Hold on tight, everyone!”
At her telepathic message, we latch on tightly to Fei’s back.
At the same time, Fei’s body turns sharply.
The flying object zips right through the space we occupied just moments ago.
“A long-range magic attack?!”
The thing that flew by us was a laser-like magical attack, leaving a trail of light in its wake.
“Impossible! A magic attack that can reach this high?!”
Hyrince exclaims in shock.
We’re flying at high altitude.
I don’t know how high, exactly, but we’ve got to be well over half a mile above the ground.
We should barely even be visible from down there.
That’s why we planned to infiltrate from above at night.
And yet, someone is sniping at us with absurd accuracy.
“Don’t let go, now!”
Fei swerves slightly to the left and right, still moving steadily forward.
Beams of light streak close by Fei, matching her high speed.
She’s dodging with as little movement as possible to avoid shaking us off, but the attacks flying past us are terrifyingly close.
This level of accuracy shouldn’t be possible, no matter how good the marksman.
The hit rate of a spell gets lower the farther away you are from the target.
I definitely wouldn’t be able to land shots from more than half a mile away.
Never mind a moving target like Fei in the low visibility of night.
And yet, Fei’s evasive maneuvers are getting more drastic.
She can’t afford to worry about us that much now.
In other words, if she doesn’t dodge with all her might, she’s going to get hit.
It might be partly because we’re getting closer, but this is still an unthinkably precise shooter.
“Shun!” Hyrince shouts. “We have to withdraw! If they have a magic user this strong who knows we’re here, then our strategy’s already failed!”
True enough, our original plan was to break in without being noticed, then if we get noticed inside, retreat at top speed while the enemy is still confused.
But that prediction went out the window as soon as we encountered a preemptive attack.
“No, we have to force our way through!”
If we withdraw here, that means Leston and the others will die.
There’s no way I can let that happen.
If we run away with our tails between our legs now, I’ll never be able to call myself a hero again.
“But!”
“Julius would never have given up in a situation like this! Am I wrong?”
Maybe it was unfair to say that to Hyrince.
But we really can’t withdraw now.
“……Very well.”
Sure enough, Hyrince gives in.
But that doesn’t solve our main problem.
The sniper is still attacking us, and since they already know we’re here, we have to assume they’re fully prepared to intercept us.
As we speed through the air, I activate Clairvoyance to look for the source of the beams.
The mage is on top of the castle ramparts.
He’s exactly the sort of old man you’d picture if you heard the word “wizard.”
“Fei, bring us closer to the castle!”
“Right!”
With Clairvoyance, I keep an eye on the old mage.
The magic shots are being fired at regular intervals from his staff.
But he’s not even breaking a sweat. Despite the incredible power of the spells, he looks as if he’s invoking the most basic of beginner’s magic.
“Crap!”
Hyrince and I simultaneously activate barriers in time with Fei’s frantic cry.
It’s called Wyrm Barrier, a skill that dampens the effects of magic like the scale skills unique to wyrms and dragons.
The skill is very convenient, producing a sort of thin membrane that can even hold up to some physical attacks.
However, you have to defeat a wyrm to be able to acquire it, and it costs no small amount of skill points, too.
On top of that, its effect is weak compared with the original Wyrm Scales, and it takes a good deal of MP to activate, so its convenience comes at a high price.
The only reason I haven’t been using it this whole time is because I’d run out of MP very quickly.
Hyrince and I both use Wyrm Scales, and Fei uses Dragon Scales.
With that much defense, we should be all right even if we take a hit or two.
Or so I thought.
“Ngh!”
I feel blood trickle down my cheek, coupled with a chill running down my back.
The beam penetrated all three barriers and nearly hit my face.
I managed to dodge it by jerking my head out of the way, but it still grazed my cheek a little.
It didn’t cause much physical damage.
My Auto-Recovery activates right away, closing the wound.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that it nearly hit me.
It pierced through all our defenses, ignoring my resistance entirely.
It’s not just an incredibly long-distance spell.
That attack definitely has the power to kill me.
With my stats boosted by the Hero title, a direct hit probably wouldn’t kill me.
But what about everyone else?
I never thought I’d so quickly come to regret not taking Hyrince’s advice to retreat.
“Shun! You just worry about yourself! I’ll protect the lady!”
Hyrince’s dependable words melt my fears away.
Of course. Hyrince is a capable defender who protected my brother for years.
If Hyrince says he’ll protect her, I’m sure he will.
So I’ll trust Hyrince and do whatever I can.
“Fei, charge straight ahead!”
“What?!”
We’re still some distance away from the castle.
The distance is slowly closing, but if we keep dodging as we advance, eventually, we’ll hit our limit.
The old wizard’s accuracy is higher than Fei’s evasion abilities.
We can somehow get by at this current distance, but the closer we get, the harder dodging the attacks becomes.
In which case, our only option is to forget about dodging in the first place.
“What do you mean, charge straight ahead?!”
“I’ll take care of it. Just trust me and charge ahead!”
Fei hesitates for a moment, then makes up her mind and accelerates forward.
“Don’t blame me if this gets us all killed!”
Our velocity builds up rapidly.
I couldn’t tell until now, but it seems like Fei really isn’t used to flying yet, since she hasn’t trained the skill up at all.
Apparently, flying straight is even more difficult than dodging the beam attacks.
Her speed is infinitely faster than when she was dodging around before.
Another beam fires at us.
I activate the spell I was preparing.
One of the Holy Light Magic spells, Mirror Shield.
It’s a counterspell that repels any attack.
A thin white pane of light appears in front of the flying beam, which hits it and bounces off in a different direction.
“Eek!”
Fei lets out a shriek at the sight of the Mirror Shield and the beam of light crashing before her eyes.
Normally, the spell is supposed to reflect the attack back at the opponent, but apparently, it was only able to bounce the beam away due to its sheer power.
Hyrince and I still have our barriers active, yet even with that, I could only deflect the attack.
What an incredible amount of power.
And now we’re heading directly for the mage who wields it.
We have no chance of winning in a long-range battle.
If we can’t get closer and force a close-combat situation, we’ll get hit with that magic at point-blank range.
Another beam flies toward us, and I deflect it in the same way.
As we get closer, the weight of the attacks hitting my Mirror Shield increases accordingly.
Each time, I reinforce the shield with a fresh supply of MP, but I can tell it’s not going to last if these attacks keep coming.
Despite the constant onslaught of attacks, the old mage’s MP shows no signs of running out.
Honestly, I’d like to give this guy a piece of my mind.
But even that powerful magic and massive MP might still be conquerable if we can get close enough to prevent him from firing magic.
And that chance is coming up right before my eyes.
Physically speaking, that is.
The distance between us and the old wizard is so little now that I don’t need Clairvoyance to see him.
Once we’re a few dozen feet away, I jump off Fei’s back.
“Wha—?!”
Fei’s startled exclamation reaches me through Telepathy, but the boom of a magic beam exploding against the Mirror Shield in front of me drowns that out.
Since I’ve moved away from Hyrince and Fei, my magic defense power’s been reduced.
Nevertheless, I put all my strength into the Mirror Shield, knocking the beam away.
Then I let gravity do its work, swinging my sword downward toward the wizard.
“Hmm. Well, I suppose that earns passing marks.”
I hear a voice…
…but it’s coming from beside me.
My sword cuts through empty air, and when I whirl toward the source of the voice, I see that the old mage has somehow moved several feet away.
Was it an illusion or Teleport via the rare Spatial Magic?
I can’t tell, but I definitely can’t just stand here defenseless.
Jumping away would be a bad call.
If there’s more distance between us, that gives the wizard an advantage.
I’ll just have to step forward!
My skill-enhanced thoughts arrive at this conclusion in an instant, so I turn to step toward the wizard.
However, against my will, my legs are forced to move backward instead.
By the countless spells being fired at them.
“Geh… Ugh!”
The magic barrage hits my legs with machine gun–like speed.
Individually, the shots are weaker than the long-distance attacks that were fired at us before.
But there are too many of them!
I use my sword and Mirror Shield to knock them back, but several still break through my barrier to jab into my body.
The damage per shot is low, but you know what they say about many drops of water.
The impact pushes me back one step away from the wizard, then another.
“Yaaaah!”
Suddenly, Hyrince comes leaping down from the sky just as I did.
His sword splits the castle ramparts below.
This time, I see the old man disappear.
Whirling around, I find him standing opposite where he was just moments ago.
Teleport. It’s said that the number of people who can use Spatial Magic can be counted on one hand.
It’s still far from even my grasp, yet this terrifying mage can use it freely.
Hyrince and I square off against him.
At the same time, Fei comes back around, menacing the old wizard from the sky.
On her back is Katia, fully prepared to use magic.
“Oh dear… This is too much. You got me, you got me. This old man is retreating.”
With that, the wizard teleports away.
I search for signs of his presence, but he doesn’t seem to have teleported anywhere nearby.
“Did he really retreat?”
“Decided to let us go, more likely.”
I agree with Hyrince.
If that mage was using his full power, I don’t know if we could win, even if we all came at him at once.
“That was Master Ronandt. The strongest human mage alive, and Julius’s instructor in magic.”
That was Julius’s master?
The powerful mage who Julius used to say was “a funny sort”…
Did he decide to spare us because I’m Julius’s brother?
“I guess…I still have a long way to go.”
I don’t know why he decided to let us live.
But I feel like he showed me there’s always someone stronger than you.
Hugo, that girl Sophia, the little white girl who killed Julius—
—will I ever be able to surpass them?
“Let’s go.”
I shake my head, pushing down the anxiety welling up inside me.
Fei lands on top of the ramparts, letting Katia down.
There are no signs of anyone else nearby.
If no one came running to see what was causing all the noise, that probably means a trap is lying in wait for us.
But we still have to go.
“Fei, wait here. If anything happens, I’ll let you know with Telepathy.”
“Okay.”
Leaving Fei on the ramparts, we walk into the dark of the castle.
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